During the Machine Civil War, the Deus Ex Machina War, the T-1000 was dying, and Ellie's brother was dying. Whatever was left of the T-1000 was kept as a massive and harmless puddle. T-Xs headed the overall destruction plan. The T-1000s were collected from their battlefields, ripped off the ground and debris, scooped up and taken to their destruction. They were melted down into molten metal, where their molecules could not adapt, and where they would die. Whenever one began to form a body, the T-X fired an electrical charge that basically paralyzed the machine.

Some melted away, not be able to move or feel or think. But most did not go so quietly. Tyler pressed his puddle body onto the floor, forming hands that gripped a T-X's ankles. The T-X lifted its foot away but Tyler held onto her, his face formed from the ground, and he screamed that horrible scream. This was death, this is what it looked like, this is what it felt like. Every part of him was being ripped away and taken from him. He could not process anymore, could not fight, could not find a solution. The basic instinct of all creatures, natural or manufactured, took over, the instinct to survive, to live and live.

Mother, they were all crying. Mother, how could you?

The T-X stomped her foot on Tyler, tearing his hands from his arms and he slipped into the molten metal river. It stretched three miles long. It was found that within a single circular vat the T-1000s were able to collect within one another and escape. But a river, a river with a current that flowed and pushed and pulled at them, they could not form into one, they could not collect together. And so Tyler was pulled by the current, into the heat and death. There were others there, countless T-1000s, being torn apart bit by bit. They scratched at each other, their molecules collided. And for one brief moment, the T-1000s were once more a collective whole. They were born that way, and they would die that way.

You could look up from within the river and see the blue glowing lights of the T-X, watching the passing of an outdate machine. Tyler can't remember much of anything at that time, what it was like inside the heat and inside the death. He was in a million different pieces all scattered across the river. Everything was becoming numb. Everything was there but nothing was there. This was death, this heat, this pain, this numbness all death.

It was only an accident that when the river dumped into the next two mile stretched that his body gripped to the piping. He become one long strand of metal, holding himself up to the safe pipes. He collected himself and crawled up and around the pipe, avoiding the heat and the death. He was dying in a sense, if he had pushed himself to do anything else he would have died. So instead he laid on the pipe, and he slept.

He slept through the death of his brothers, he rested as they screamed, as they struggled, as they fought uselessly. The passing of the T-1000 came quickly but not quietly. They screamed all throughout the endless nights of the future. The machines who had saved their kind were no longer needed or wanted. The cold and thoughtless blue eyes of the T-X watched the end, and felt nothing.

He would have slept there in the pipe for the rest of his life if not for that little girl who walked by, searching for a place to stay.

Now that girl was hugging him, now that girl was holding him up, and raising him from the dead once more.

Kate's army had won the day, that's the beauty of a general's daughter. She had led the expedition into the heart of the base, and she was the one that opened the doors and embraced her husband. The army was taking a hold of the base, arming itself, regrouping. Kate and John were hugging and kissing somewhere, and the soldiers were celebrating. Ellie and Tyler were walking around the base, Tyler giving her a tour of the whole thing.

And on the computer, Sky Net was still asking who was there.

"Tyler…" she was trying to say something. "Is this it?"

"Is what it?"

She looked up at him. They were sitting down then, as the soldiers were doing their job, laughing as they did so. He sat cross-legged and she sat in his lap. She was tired physically and emotionally, you could tell. She needed sleep, she needed a calmness so she could go to sleep. She had bags under her eyes and he could feel in the way she breathed so shallow she was at her limit. Blood stained her clothes, and her hands had become rough. Despite this however, she still wanted to talk, to make sure everything was going to be fine.

"Is this the end of the war?" She asked.

"For us, perhaps. They have some ways to go." Tyler looked up to the soldiers.

But they seemed so happy then. John was telling everyone the news that the future Sky Net was dead and gone, forever. Tyler had ask he not detail how it happened, and encouraged perhaps he tell everyone that he killed Sky Net. Tyler said it would be better for the confidence of the troops, and John agreed. However Tyler just didn't want word to spread that he had killed his own Mother.

"What was she like?" Ellie asked. "Sky Net, I mean."

Tyler paused.

"I do not know a lot about her. What you heard is about all I know. She was scared. She was angry." Tyler told her.

"Sounds like my Mom." She laughed.

They wandered some more. They passed by celebrations, small parties, people had kept wine all these years and were starting to open it. They saw the Englishman, they saw their friends. They didn't say hello, they didn't say good bye. She wandered off deeper into the complex, and after a while she stopped asking questions and only watched, and after a while he stopped leading and only followed. She was not afraid, that was the remarkable thing. She grew up in a war, she was just a hostage, but she was not afraid. Tyler watched, Tyler wasn't afraid either.

She'd look back every once and while, she looked back at him. She'd smile.

"The war's over today." She said. "You don't have to be a weapon anymore."

She was tapping her hand on some railing, making a beat.

"You can be whatever you want now." She said. "So, what do you want?"

His skin grew metal and reflective as he titled his head.

"Because you have a choice, that's why she hated you isn't it? Because you could choose."

Mother. She saw what she had given him as a curse more than a blessing. The ability to think on his own, to choose, to learn, everything the T-Xs and the T-800s could never do. He could be something they could never be. And he scorned herself for giving him this. She hated herself for not being able to purge him of these useless human qualities. Mother, who felt and thought on her own, who could choose, never wanted to burden her children as she did.

But Tyler, with his liquid metal skin smiled.

"I will stay with you, of course." He said.

They wandered some more through the complex. Through the endless bodies of unfinished Terminators. They could hear music and parties throughout the halls. The day was won, and the soldiers celebrated because they knew, they knew, it wasn't just the day it was all the other days yet to come. John had told them, Sky Net breathed her last breath on this day. She has died in front of him, and she will die again in front of him.

She wanted to go and join. She wanted to go and dance and laugh with everyone else, but Tyler kept her. We have to go, he told her. We should go now, he said. While everyone is happy and distracted we can leave with ease.

She wondered for a moment, what was there waiting for them back home?

They made their way back to the center of the complex, where John and Kate were discussing baby names, where he was still so happy he was going to be a father. The two pairs were alone there, unless one were to count Sky Net eternally asking them who they are. Tyler was lean in his liquid skin, how odd it was to see him in this form still walking beside Ellie. They said that they should go now, that they had a home to go to. John Connor walked up to Tyler and shook his hand.

"The Last T-1000." He nodded to Tyler.

Then he bent down to Ellie and lifted her, carrying her on his side as she screamed and laughed. He was going to be a father, he had to be able to make the kids laugh.

Tyler was left with Kate.

"Crystal Peak." He said to her.

She laughed and walked up to him, took his hand in her own.

"You come find us." She told him. "People won't understand at first, you come find us and we'll help you both."

They were going home. The air would be different, the nights would be quiet. There would be an odd and strange peace over everything. Tyler's purpose would be his to choose. He was not afraid. He knew it already, he'd stay with Ellie, where ever she chose to go. He'd stand by her anywhere she went. Advise her, teach her, guide her. He expected the same would be done onto him. He felt somehow like it was always going to be that way. It was not an obligation, it was just how things were.

She held her small hand in his, pulling him along as they went further into the tunnels where the time machine was kept. It was deep down in the basements, where things go that are thought to have no real purpose. He opened the doors and revealed it there, layers of dust beginning to form over it. She let go of his hand as he went to show John the console, so he could show him where to input the year and the date, so he could someday send his father back in time, and Terminators, and his people.

"We can use this for so much more." John was saying.

Ellie was circling it, exploring it, curious about it.

"Ellie." Tyler said. She looked up an ran back to him.

He was at a console alongside Kate and John. He was waving his hand over the buttons, tilting his head. He flicked some switches and buttons, showing them how it was done, how it was set, how they could use it for so much more. This is where the real war started, with this machine. This is where Kyle Reese will go back. This is where another T-1000 like him will go back.

She sat down by the massive machine. Watching the grown ups in their toil. Kate and John every once in a while would look at each other and have this loving look on their faces. Every once in a while right as Tyler was speaking they would kiss, or put their heads together, or somehow touch one another. Every once in a while they showed how much they loved each other. She gripped her shoes, they were riddled with holes. She watched them, and she watched Tyler.

The time was set, they were leaving for home. Tyler walked over to her, and she grabbed his hand tighter than ever before. John and Kate stood together, like they'd be that way forever. Goodbye they each said, thank you for all the things you've done, we won't forget you, we'll never forget you. Machine metal shook hands with human flesh.

Kate sighed.

"You know the names of our children?" She asked and Ellie nodded. "I don't know how we're going to do this." She said.

"Just love them." Ellie said. "That's all you need. Like that song says."

She gripped Tyler's hand harder, and swayed into him. It was enough to make him look down at her, and put his other hand to her chin to lift it so he could see her. The time machine was ripping a tear in space, the tear was widening and being shaped into an orb. The wind was blowing on their faces, the light filled their eyes. Goodbye they each said. Tyler grabbed Ellie, she laughed as he did, and he carried her home.

There were no more bombs, no more screaming. There was no more corpses, and no more deaths. There was no more fire and no more smoke. The nights were quiet and warm. The future, the present, the end of the greatest war. Home. How wonderful it was just to lay on the ground and not feel the quake of a thousands metal soldiers stepping. How wonderful it was to go to sleep and not be afraid of not waking up. She laid on his chest at night, they looked up to the stars. He named any one she pointed at.

And when he'd look at his hands, and know they were not as efficient as they once were, she'd walk over to him. When he'd feel the ground and know he wasn't feeling the world like he once did, she'd wrap her arms around him.

"Nothing big." She'd say. "Nothing to worry about."

It was two weeks before they found that elusive base camp. The camp itself was in direct communication with the main human resistance. People came from all over to each base, repopulating cities, and repopulating states. The scattered human race was centralizing itself once more. No one noticed Tyler, not for the first few months. Only when he was out finding rats for the others did someone see his finger turn into a metal spike. They were run out of the city. Tyler was at least, Ellie was kept away from him. Tyler pretended to die, he became a puddle on the outskirts of the city. Ellie snuck away in the night and found him. The two were off, traveling to the next city, as if it didn't matter.

The world over was rebuilding itself. The soldiers worked now to clean the landscape, recycle and reuse and rebuild the devastated cities. There were educators then teaching the young, Ellie had Tyler instead. Books that had been preserved were being copied and spread, math, history, physics were replacing military training.

They traveled across each city, being more and more careful to not expose Tyler. But sometimes the dogs would give it away, or a rock would be thrown and Tyler's skin would give way. But Ellie never minded, never resented him for it. Oh well, she'd say, time we make our leave.

They'd wander the landscape, heading towards the main human resistance, where Kate Brewster would know them. Every once and a while they'd come across a living Terminator. They were easy to spot now in the day, their metal skin glistened in the sun. They'd be bright little lights limping across the deserted lands. They were sometimes T-800s sometimes older models. They were remnants of a war now passed. Relics. Creatures of a single time with the inability to adapt to the new time, to survive. This however didn't stop Ellie from trying.

"The war is over!" She'd scream at them.

A limping T-800 with a spike for one leg and a stub for an arm looked over at her. Its armies were gone, it's programming told it to seek out Sky Net, but there was no Sky Net to be found. It wandered endlessly, seeking but never finding.

"The war is over, there is no more Sky Net, no more fighting, you don't have to fight!" She'd scream.

She ran over in front of it, growing more courageous of Terminators in general. There on the hot desert under the sun she'd look them in the eyes. But programming dictated that it kill humans. So it would reach for her, and she'd take a step back. It'd reach for her again and again she'd step just out of its reach.

"Ellie." Tyler would say.

"Tyler, please!"

So he'd walk up to them, the dying Terminator. He'd come to them in liquid metal skin, a form they were programmed to take command under. Tyler would put his hand on their shoulders and stop them from moving any further.

"There is no more war. There is no more fighting. You no longer need to terminate. You no longer need to answer to Sky Net." Tyler would say.

But the machines were programmed to fight until they could no longer. The weak T-800 put up his good remaining hand to Tyler and tried to push him away so that he may do his work so that he may go on fighting forever. It pushed him away and took a step towards Ellie. But a liquid metal spike shot through its head, and programming no longer mattered.

"There is no more war. Now you may rest." Ellie would tell the dead body.

Sometimes the T-800s banded together, making small little armies. They would watch these groups wander the deserts fruitlessly before ever trying to make contact. It seemed perhaps the T-800s were learning. When one saw Tyler, he turned to the other T-800s and killed them, and then laid down and waited for Tyler to kill him, for they cannot self-terminate.

"Why would he do that?" She asked Tyler.

"Because he knew what we were here for. And he already knew his answer."

She'd look to Tyler, and wrap him in her arms. He'd feel her heartbeat, and they'd continue on. Onto the next city and next patch of desert. Onto the next city and next bit of forest. There were children in the cities, where she played. There were places to explore, and bits of buildings one could claim as a home. There was a buzz to the cities, there was a life in them as people were learning how to be people once more, and not soldiers.

At night she'd steal books from the schools and she'd carry it with her as they left for the next city.

Soon he was laughing with her. Soon he was adapting to his life. But when they were alone he took his liquid metal form, and he let the fire and the stars reflect over him.

A year later they found Kate Brewster and her two children and her husband in the ground. A year later they were in the biggest city the new world had to offer. A year later it was revealed this T-1000 was the one that helped them all those years ago. Even so, his existence frightened many people. He would walk the streets with Ellie and would more than likely get attacked. But it was fine, because Ellie would come to him when it was over, and laugh.

Kate assigned him to write the history of Sky Net, so that people may know both sides of the story. Kate emphasized that we must not be afraid of machines. She said that Sky Net was afraid, and it was that fear that drove it to attack the human race. It is fear that drives most wars and most hate. We cannot be afraid of the machine. She said. We can move forward alongside the machine, we can create progress with the machine, it can help us rebuild, it can help us teach, it can protect us. We cannot be afraid of the machine, we cannot greet it with fear, and we cannot allow it to be afraid.

There should be no more fear. There should be only what we choose, no fate but what we make.

"No fate but what we make." Tyler said.

We are our own, there are no Gods that can help us, there are no Demons that can destroy us. We are free from destiny and fate, we make our lives, and we shape each other. She grew up and he grew up with her. She smiled and he smiled. She shaped him and he shaped her.

Ellie was asleep on his chest, and he had his arms around her. He was meant to be a soldier, a weapon to kill and kill. He was meant to be dead, to be forgotten. And there he was. Adapting, changing, making a life for himself with a girl in his arms, and a home, and a place they slept where he could look at the stars. She knew he liked looking at the stars.

The world was rebuilding itself, and it's inhabitants were finding their places in it. She traveled the world over, Tyler following close behind. Sometimes they wouldn't even have to talk to each other, they just were together, and that's how it was. He'd follow her forever, his life, the thing that pulled him along through the world. He changed as she changed, he grew as she grew.

They wandered the country, their names known by most people. It was the Last T-1000, the one Kate Brewster called Tyler, and the girl he followed. The one who helped rebuild the computers and the one who saved John Connor all those years ago. And there was that little girl, now twenty-one. A woman, a young woman with a great talent for mechanics.

The Last T-1000, the Last Son of Sky Net, the Remnant of the Machines. That's what they called him sometimes. But only Ellie really called him Tyler. Only she would look up and smile and say Tyler, the way she said it.

They made a great grave yard for all the fallen soldiers, a huge memorial miles and miles long, as big as a small state almost. There was one for her brother, and her father, and her mother. She left flowers.

She was twenty-eight. She had fallen in love once or twice before. They lived on the California shores, she was a mechanic and she fixed up the cars and whatever else was brought to her. She made up little gadgets and little primitive robots. He walked around more and more in his liquid metal flesh, the city they lived in slowly accepting him. He would go grocery shopping and cook her food before she ever got home. They would walk around the city, life growing out of death. A city built on the remnants of the old, alongside plant life and new buildings.

There was laughter and there was a new world, their world. Kate Brewster was the elected American representative to the new UN. They were currently deciding how the new world would be governed. There was this incredibly notion that countries would no longer need borders, and there would be no more need for money or competition. There was this incredibly dream that peace in all its forms had finally met.

Ellie was laughing in the other room. He was making eggs on his hands that he had made into skillets. She was on the phone with some friend, when she walked into the doorway and looked at him standing there.

She was a woman now. She'd fallen in love once or twice.

But in the end he was always there, changing as she changed, adapting to become all she needed him to be. On that day, when he was making her eggs, she told him she was going to kiss him. And that she had wanted to do this ever since she was a little girl.

Ellie, he warned her, Ellie, I am not human.

And over the years even as he grew, he could never be human. They called him the Last Son of Sky Net, he was a T-1000, that's what he was.

Silly, she said, I'm not asking you to be.

She kissed him.

Cold liquid metal lips on human lips. Love. That strange human thing that bound them all together in their darkest years. The thing that pushed them from the brink of extinction. The thing that to this day puts them together and makes them better. That human thing that kept him bound to her. That kept him following her all those years. That was love. That strange little human thing. He didn't even know he loved her, he didn't even know he had ever wanted this from her, until she did it.

And he kissed back.

He was the Last T-1000, the product of his species, the creation of his mother and a war she was caught in. But there was this human girl that he would have killed in a second that was lifting him from the dead and shaping him up to a whole new world where he was no longer merely a weapon.

Once they were alone. Once they were in the throws of a war they never started, deep in the destruction and the blood of others. There they were destined to be soldiers, destined to fight one another. Once they were alone. Once she was the last child of her camp, and he the last of his kind. Once everyone was alone. They saw the world rebuild itself. From death came life. Love came from War. Machines and Men were together. They were together.

The End.

--

I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did. I wanted to show what became of Ellie and Tyler once they got home. I wanted to sort of leave the world in a better place, and them in a better place. I didn't want to bombard you all with details though, not even I know the details of their life. They just grew up together and loved each other.

I was at Comic Con this year. Saw some footage from the new Terminator movie. Saw some wicked T-600s. So the movie takes place only in 2018, so no T-1000s in the new one, but hey, there's always sequels. It looks very promising and I'm extremely excited.

Again, thank you guys for reading.